4th week into flowering *Expert Organic Advice Needed*

I'm in the 4th week of flowering, in organic soil I mixed and composted myself. The first 3 weeks went smooth and the plants looked amazing. Now they are starting to look a little less amazing and I am getting a few of these dead leaves every.



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The soil has conditioners like lime, sulfer, EWC. I cooked the soil for a month and tested the ph along the way. It stayed between 6 and 7. I fill my reservoir up 2 days before I water and I aerate it with a pump and air stone. The day of watering I use ph down to get it to about 6.3 to 6.5. Used to even en electronic meter but I broke it so I am using ph strips from a bio lab, but they are pretty accurate.

Temperature never goes above 80(mid day) never goes below 74(night) I cant give you an exact NPK but the ingredients I used were earth worm castings, blood meal, bone meal, rock phosphate, bat guano, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, lime, sulfur, peat moss, green sand, charcoal mykos. Then like a tbsp of epsom salt, and azos


I don't recall the exact amounts, I took like 2 bags of happy frog potting soil and dumped a bag of earth worm castings into it. Most of the products had composting instructions so I just went by those.

For example it would say;
For composting use 2 cups of bloodmeal per 50 pounds of compost.

But since I was adding I shit ton of different ingredients I basically quartered the amount implemented in the directions. So like I added a half cup to a cup of blood meal instead of 2 cups. So I am worried there isn't enough food for them at this stage. Like I said they looked great for the firs month almost. If the soil had a bad nutrient balance or something I would have seen problems earlier right?

Blood meal is ridiculously strong stuff,half cup for two bags of happy frog and one bag of EWC........too much in my opinion but that might not even be your problem.

all I can say is if you added all those ingredients,I don't think your plant is lacking food.

are you letting the soil dry out completely in between watering?with organics you never want it completely dry

you should of let it cook longer. thats why you have phos deficiencies. most of that mix takes a long time to break down. 2- 3 months cook is proper. just make a guano tea or top dress with some shrimp meal and basalt rock dust,. after topdress. Topdress again with some compost and worm castings then feed with a compost tea. That will get everything to break down faster.

google keep it simple organics. if you can't find that stuff. they're pretty cheap.

NightOwlBono said:

Blood meal is ridiculously strong stuff,half cup for two bags of happy frog and one bag of EWC........too much in my opinion but that might not even be your problem.

all I can say is if you added all those ingredients,I don't think your plant is lacking food.

are you letting the soil dry out completely in between watering?with organics you never want it completely dry

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Well I added them sparingly. I didn't use a lot of anything.

Dude that's what your not getting,half cup of bloodmeal is not "using sparingly"
you have enough of everything in your soil,too much

do what hey root said and you'll be fine,good luck man

First, stop worrying about your pH, no need for this in organic grows. Some airstones and any organic matter will take care of any chlorine and ph issues. I just sprinkle coco or kelp meal and let it bubble. Are you feeding when you water? If you have all of that mixed in the soil all you need is water and a shot of mycos here and there. The mycos do all of the work like keeping pH in check. I grow In coco and use only kelp meal, alfalfa meal, phosphorus guano, protekt, and fish emulsion. I still have my bags of azomite, blood meal, bone meal, and even ewc that I kicked to side because you don't really need them...Keep it simple, the main reason why I switched to organics.

What you don't seem to get is I am not growing one plant. I mixed a half cup of bloodmeal into like 60 pounds of clean soil. Go read the super soil recipe dude... per 8 bags of soil that guy throws in 5 pounds of bonemeal bloodmeal guano and 3 pounds of rock phosphate. If anything I under did it.

FYI: hyroot told me to feed them more. Thats not what you are telling me. I dont actually think you know what you are talking about.

bookechu said:

First, stop worrying about your pH, no need for this in organic grows. Some airstones and any organic matter will take care of any chlorine and ph issues. I just sprinkle coco or kelp meal and let it bubble. Are you feeding when you water? If you have all of that mixed in the soil all you need is water and a shot of mycos here and there. The mycos do all of the work like keeping pH in check. I grow In coco and use only kelp meal, alfalfa meal, phosphorus guano, protekt, and fish emulsion. I still have my bags of azomite, blood meal, bone meal, and even ewc that I kicked to side because you don't really need them...Keep it simple, the main reason why I switched to organics.

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Im not worried about the ph, I just wanted to emphasize that its not a ph problem because it seems like people come on here and give advice when they don't have any experience.

Would you say I didn't make the soil strong enough? Looking at subcools organic recipe, per 8 bags he uses 5 pounds of bone meal and bloodmeal. I used 2 bags of soil and like a 30-40 pound bag of EWC. So if I devide his recipe by 4 (8bags of soil / the 2 Im using) his recipe I should use a little over a pound of bone/blood meal plus a pound of guano and rock phosphate... I don't think I used that much at all

Is this just a case of them needing more food? If so I can whip up a tea immediately. I have a res just for aerating tea.

There is a big difference between AACT and adding fertilizers directly.
good luck with your setup.im done

Your soil is perfect. Stop pHing your solution. The mycos will regulate everything. I would flush then water with a ewc "tea". Just a little ewc (sprinkle in water), if it is quality, the beneficials will multiply from the aeration.

If the bone meal has not broken down. Its not providing anything to the plant. A guano tea will make nutes readily available for uptake. Shrimp meal breaks and dust powder breaks down much faster than bone meal. So aside from doing that all you can do is topdress with compost and worm castings. Water compost teas and enzymes teas. That could speed up the bone meal to break down. You're feeding microbes. In turn they feed the plant.

NightOwlBono said:

There is a big difference between AACT and adding fertilizers directly.
good luck with your setup.im done

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Good, cuz you aren't helping. Just trying to act like you know everything without divulging any real information.

hyroot said:

If the bone meal has not broken down. Its not providing anything to the plant. A guano tea will make nutes readily available for uptake. Shrimp meal breaks and dust powder breaks down much faster than bone meal. So aside from doing that all you can do is topdress with compost and worm castings. Water compost teas and enzymes teas. That could speed up the bone meal to break down. You're feeding microbes. In turn they feed the plant.

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I cooked the soil for at least a month before I used it, isn't that enough time for the ingredients to break down?

shmoop said:

I cooked the soil for at least a month before I used it, isn't that enough time for the ingredients to break down?

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No. 2 - 3 months. 3 months would be best. Bone meal and blood meal take forever to break down. Thats why you have deficiencies.

Im trying a new recipe from rols thread. Adjusted. I stopped using blood meal and bone meal a long time ago. I used crab meal and guano instead. But now I don't want to use guano anymore. So ....


Pro mix bx
Worm castings
Compost
Kelp meal
Neem cake
Shrimp meal
Basalt rock dust

This recipe 4-6 weeks cook time is good so far.

4th wk ur gonna see some leafs givin up the ghost..normal event. when in doubt in organic or not, just h2o for a few feeds..all will be well with ur mix

If its only a few leafs I wouldnt worry. Hell leafs life cycles dont last forever. They come and go. Whats your whole plant look like, I personally think your oksy. Right now I would just water then hit it w a lil more pk if needed.

You're probably OK if this just started at week 4 though it may inhibit bud size a little bit in the end. The best/fastest cure for this would be to spray the plants with a high phos tea. However, you don't want to spray guano water on your buds, in which case you may want to try just spraying the lower foliage. Or just say fuck it, they'll be done soon

I just realized I'm doing that last part a LOT. I should probably keep my soil less dry as well.

You pretty much just want to give the microbes all the time they need to break down your composted materials into a nice viable, rich humus teeming with microbes :]...regardless of what you use and depending on food stock added to mix you might not have to cycle the soil for all that long at all, but in your case yes a very long time you could probably wait up to half a year if you wanted to depending on if any soil life or mycelia formations were coming to pass. See I'm having the same problem but only because I didn't mix up the correct ratios to the correct volume of ingredients that i was adding at the time. And just go to a nice forested area and add a spoonful to a half cup of foreign soil to your regiment, because then you know you will have a decent amount of biodiversity in your soil. Just my two cents.

Also does anyone have a good source of karanja meal and neem cake I don't really wanna mess with the oils all that much and would rather just cut it into my mix beforehand so that it would be good from the get go, didn't mean to hijack thread with my question just curious. jk

HTH
Happy growing
GK

Man I'm in subcool super soil and I had a few leafs turn and dieand I panicked cuz this is my first grow but it ain't no thing especially 4 weeks in flower from everything I read its normal. Careful adding anything with high pk you cud burn the fuck outta your girls especially if your soil keeps breaking down(which it will) or if u hit a hot spot. I wouldn't recommended foiler spraying anything on ur plant unless u want moldy buds especially with plants that thick and bushy. Have u been giving a tbs of molasses/gal every feeding if not I would start yesterday! Good luck homie